The Good Earth: 20 Things Only Toph Saw
by Yuurei-san
Summary: :Avatar: The Last Airbender: :Toph Bei Fong: The blind leading the sighted.


Yes, people, it's a **20bendings** claim. Check the community out, since we could always use more activity!

The Good Earth: 20 Things Only Toph Saw

Author: Airbender  
Character/Pairings/Group: Toph Bei Fong, a _smidgen_ of TophxAang.  
Rating: PG  
Random Stuff You Want to Mention: Toph is God. There's nothing else to say, really. Besides the fact I'll probably do a Toph x Aang claim as soon as more episodes with her in them air. Oh, and Avatar and Toph are not owned by me, no matter how much I would like them to be.

The Good Earth: Twenty Things That Only Toph Saw

1. The month before Toph was born, there had been a fever epidemic running through the area of the Earth Kingdom where the Bei Fong family resided. Her mother was one of the many that had contracted the fever, and when both mother and child lived through the birth the healer called it a miracle.

Toph's father, looking at his child's unseeing eyes, disagreed.

2. Toph has been using Earthbending to "see" ever since she was old enough to crawl. The first time she consciously used Earthbending was when she was four, in order to knock an apple down from a tree branch.

3. By doing so, Toph not only knocked down the apple, but the tree as well. It was then that Toph first began Earthbending lessons under Master Yu.

4. Until that point, no one had any idea that the Bei Fong family had a daughter, and even then the only one who knew was Master Yu.

5. Nearly all of Toph's advanced moves are of her own creation. She had no one to teach her advanced Earthbending, and couldn't read Earthbending scrolls due to her blindness, so Toph relied only on her natural talent, creativity, and intense determination to grow stronger.

6. Three years later she surpassed Master Yu.

7. Toph still puts up with the repetitive exercises and being treated like a weakling because she knows the way for her to have control of her life is to make her parents think _they_ do.

8. Toph has known for a long time that her father compensates with over protectiveness to make up for the fact he lacks real affection for his daughter. The bitter knowledge of it only served to make her heart harder.

9. Playing the helpless little blind girl was Toph's first means of striking back at her father. If he was going to keep on lying to her in words and actions, she would do the same to him.

10. The Blind Bandit was born of Toph's desire for strong opponents, the need to release the emotional turmoil within her, and most importantly of all, the promise of doing both things at the same time.

11. Luckily for Toph, _Earth Rumble_ fit the bill perfectly. It took her awhile to find it from the vibrations caused by the Earthbenders, but she showed up in time to challenge the tournament champion, taunt him, beat him, and take the belt for herself. Toph made it a point to attend and win every _Earth Rumble_ held since then.

12. It is only when she fights Aang two years later that Toph realizes fighting only Earthbenders nowhere close to her in skill has made her grown stagnant. No one she has ever met moves like him, steps so light as to seem that he was mere seconds away from flying off into the sky, not bound to the earth like her.

That doesn't make her loss any less grating, though.

13. Toph's loss to him isn't nearly as humiliating to her as when she called her guards over to force the Avatar and his friends to leave. For some reason, letting him see her helpless act bothers her. It is only later that Toph realizes that she didn't want to seem anything less than strong and capable in his eyes.

14. _Aang really is like the wind_, Toph would think to herself sourly over dinner. _No matter how hard you try, you can't stop it from going where it wants._

15. Maybe Toph hadn't needed to be _quite_ so rough when she fought the tournament fighters, even if they had kidnapped her. But the chance to redeem herself with Aang more than made up for any feelings of guilt she had. Not to mention Toph found his admiration of her skills extremely gratifying.

16. Toph has a secret fondness tempered with respect for Iroh, even if meeting him made her realize a perfect stranger knew her better after five minutes than her own parents over her lifetime.

17. Toph rather likes the sound of "Sifu Toph". She never had respect for her own merit given to her before, and it warms her inside. However, she will never, ever, ever let Aang know this.

18. Needless to say, Toph's way of teaching Aang Earthbending is her main way of going about this. Thanks to her, Aang will never look at an oncoming boulder the same way again. Or a blindfold for that matter.

19. It was really amusing to Toph that despite the short amount of time since she began traveling with Aang, she already knew which buttons to push. And truth be told, Aang's staff did make an _excellent_ nutcracker.

20. Toph is definitely a tomboy, in temperament if not looks. Yet the brief smile that graces her face when Aang finally Earthbends for the first time brings out a warm beauty that all the fancy silks and rare jewels the Bei Fong family owns could not.

Nobody sees it but her.


End file.
